Fourth Sunday in Advent (B)
December 24, 2023
Text:
Luke 1:26-38
Luther, copying St. Bernard before
him, says there are three miracles in our Holy Gospel: 1. “that God and man
should be joined in this Child;” 2. “that a mother should remain a virgin;” and
3. “that Mary should have such faith as to believe that this mystery would be
accomplished in her. The last,” he says, “is not the least of the three.”[1] I’m taking this, by the way, from a Luther
Christmas anthology, compiled in the 20th Century by Roland Bainton,
called Martin Luther’s Christmas Book.
If you are so inclined, for roughly $11, this would make a beautiful
addition to your family library, an edifying source for your Advent
meditations, and reading it together may become a cherished family tradition.
It is worthy of note that Luther and
Bernard do not count the appearance of the angel Gabriel as one of the
miracles. But then, of course, we are
always in the presence of angels, divine messengers (the word angel
means messenger) who deliver the Word of God to us. That is what they are doing right now, having
brought us to Church. And that is what
they do whenever you open your Bible, or meditate on a passage of Scripture,
and in countless ways as they bring God’s Word before our eyes, into our ears,
and into our minds.
In any case, Luther deals with the
second miracle first, that a mother should remain a virgin. “The virgin birth is a mere trifle for God,”
Luther says. The fact that modern liberal
theologians deny the possibility simply betrays their lack of faith. If God is God, He created the natural process
of conception. He invented it, and if He
so desires, He can circumvent it. The
first man, Adam, had neither father nor mother, and Eve, too, was brought forth
from Adam’s side, apart from any natural parentage. God is omnipotent. He can do as He likes. Mary is curious, how this can be. But she does not doubt that God can do
it. “For nothing will be impossible
with God,” the angel preaches (Luke 1:37; ESV).
And this is how the thing comes
about in the case of this Child. The
angel speaks the Word of God into Mary’s ear.
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son
of God” (v. 35). And so it is. For the Word of God does what it
says. But even more, the Word spoken to
Mary is received by her, becomes flesh of her flesh (the new human life of the
Savior begins, as does all human life, at conception), and takes up residence
in her womb. He must not have a human
father, for He must not inherit original sin.
He is to be our New Adam, the Father of a New Humanity, the Firstborn of
a New Creation. And He is not the Son of
Joseph. He is the Son of God. “Conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the
virgin Mary.”
And that leads us to the next great
miracle, “that God and man should be joined in this Child.” This is a greater miracle than the virgin
birth. This Child, in His Person, has
two natures, divine and human. He is the
eternally begotten Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. As God, there was never a time when He was
not. But now, in time, He is
conceived and born a Man. Fully
Man. One with us. Like us in every way, yet without sin (Heb.
4:15). It must be so. Why?
That He may be the sole Mediator between God and men, the Man, Christ
Jesus (1 Tim. 2:5). That He might
reconcile us poor sinners to God.
He had to be Man so that He could be
born under the Law… under the very Law He gave… to fulfill it for us, who have
transgressed it. He had to be Man to
bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, to be stricken, smitten by God His
Father, and afflicted. He had to be Man
to die for our sins. And His
resurrection and ascension would do us no good if it were not the flesh born of
Mary that emerged from the grave alive, and that now sits at the right hand of
God the Father Almighty.
He had to be God, though, that His
ransom be sufficient for all humanity, and that His sacrifice of atonement take
away the sins of the whole world. And He
must be God to fulfill His Promise that, in His flesh, He is nevertheless with
us (Immanuel) to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20); that even as He reigns in
heaven, He is with each one of us here on earth; with us, in fact, on a
thousand altars where He gives us to feast on His body and blood. The miracle touches us every time we gather
around His gifts.
But, Luther says (echoing Bernard),
this is not the greatest miracle yet.
The greatest miracle of the three, the most amazing of all, is that this
maiden should believe the angel’s word that she should be the mother of God.
Think about that statement. God born? And not to the High Priest’s daughter, or the
daughter of a king. But to this poor
teenage girl from Nazareth? Born in
poverty. God, poor. God, the Creator of all, who holds the
universe in His hands, helpless and utterly dependent on this Israelite
young woman. God, a crying infant
(never mind the Christmas carol we’ll sing this evening). God, soiling His diapers. Wrapped in swaddling cloths. Laid in a manger among the beasts. Nursing at His mother’s breast.
And if all of this is too scandalous
for you… If your inclination is to save God from being too human,
from getting His hands dirty with our filth, and to save yourself
from God being all-too-real, all-too concrete, all-too-tangible… remember this:
He is born to die for your sins.
On a real cross, at a real place and time in history, at the hands of
real, flesh and blood people. The Son of
God, who knew no sin, becomes sin for you, that you might become the
righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). God,
crucified. God, dead and buried. And God, risen from the dead. This Man, Jesus, is our God. Our God is a flesh and blood Man.
The mystery is unbelievably
profound. And the miracle is that Mary
believes it. And that you believe
it. That even as God is now Mary’s Son,
so God is your Brother and Savior.
Luther says that if Mary had not
believed the angel’s preaching, she could not have conceived. And so, if the Lord Christ is to be conceived
and born in you, the Word must enter your ears, and make you fertile in
faith. This is pure gift from God. It is the Holy Spirit who comes upon you
in the preaching of the Gospel.
“Behold, I am the servant of the
Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). That is how Mary received the gift of the
Christ Child. So may it be among you and
me. Hearing God’s Word, faith receives,
and speaks its hearty “Amen.” In the
Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
[1] Martin Luther, Martin
Luther’s Christmas Book, Roland H. Bainton, Ed. (Minneapolis: Augsburg,
1948) Kindle.
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